Restaurants

I don't know. It's funny. Myself and my Beloved went to a restaurant on Sunday (I was visiting a sick friend and was starving so I didn't want to cook) and it cost 45 yoyos for two take-out style Thai curries and a bottle of indifferent wine. No surprise there really. Went to an excellent restaurant last night and had four different dishes (dhal, paneer, chestnuts and green beans, spicy potatoes) and rice and a nice bottle of New Zealand sauvignon blanc (Nautilus - they've gone screw cap which is fine with a young (2004) wine like that, they didn't have the gruner veltliner left, which is a pity as it goes really well with curry) and it came to 48 yoyos. This place isn't your normal curry house; it really is distinguishable from the ultra fatty muck that you normally get and that caters for people that have already had a skinful by the time they get in the door (ever leave an indian take-out in the fridge overnight and see what happens to it? I promise that if you do you will have to be drunk to order there again). I suppose in the other place we had the joy of scarlet shiny polyester tablecloths and all the Chinese staff pretending to be Thai. And what a joy that was.

We don't eat meat. I think that should make eating out very cheap, but then I think meat should be very expensive. Most restaurants think nothing, however, of serving up some pasta mess that really should cost a fiver (and does in Italy) and charging 14 for it. Jaipur gets the pricing right. We started eating fish a couple of years ago. I think it was partially because we were sick of getting ripped off in restaurants. If I'm going to pay I'd like to do it for something that cost money not some "goat's cheese tartlet" that has been in your cold room for a month and comes out dry (the filling) and soggy (the pastry) at the same time from your microwave. Does anyone like goat's cheese tartlet? We were discussing clueless restaurant reviewers on the way home, my Beloved thought that being a socialite and posh doesn't necessarily mean you know anything about food. She also was saying that she hoped Jaipur didn't cop on to what good value they are. This really is food that you could easily be charged twice the price for somewhere else. I'm going back. Soon.